Words Can Wait
by FairDrea
Summary: Reveal fic - one shot. Ladybug finds Cat at a dark time and actions end up speaking much more loudly than words.


A/N: Oh goodness...yet another fandom my wonderful little daughters have swept me into. But I adore this story/show and the romance between Adrian and Marinette. I got this one shot stuck in my head and had to get it out. First time writing in this fandom. I hope I've done it proud!

Standard disclaimer applies - I own nothing of Miraculous Ladybug and make no profit from writing this fic.

 _ **Words Can Wait**_

Being a superhero wasn't supposed to feel hopeless.

It was supposed to be inspiring, exciting, fulfilling and a million other optimistic words ending in "ing." Being a superhero was something almost everyone, at some point in their life, wanted to be - living an exciting life, fighting crime and being an inspiration to millions.

And yet...here he was, living that life, chosen to protect, and feeling hopeless.

Cat Noir sighed, leaning against the railing of the widow's walk on an old Victorian he'd stumbled upon one night when he'd chased an akuma outside the boundaries of Paris. The house itself was old and abandoned, holding its structural soundness regardless of the fact that no one was there offering any kind of upkeep.

Chat had no idea how long it had stood empty. No one was ever here when he was but he'd only been coming for a little over a month, finding an odd sort of comfort in distancing himself from the city he continually protected which also held him an unwilling captive when he wasn't scaling rooftops as his superhero alter ego.

Here, he could be silent. Puns could take a back seat and he could reflect on his life as Adrien Agreste without feeling trapped by the solid walls and floor to ceiling glass surrounding him. He could watch Paris without hearing it, far enough away to enjoy the lights of the city but close enough to return to it if he was needed.

Luckily tonight, he wasn't needed. Or at least he wasn't needed at the moment. Whatever quiet he could get, whether it was short-lived or not, he would take.

A cold breeze, whispering the coming of fall, teased the curtains of the open french doors leading out to the widow's walk from a wide turret. They'd been open every time he was there but he'd never been curious enough to trespass and find out what was behind the doors.

Tonight, he wasn't exactly curious. More reckless.

It was that recklessness that had him walking towards the doors, pulling them wide open.

The turret housed a simple room with large windows overlooking Paris. The floors were bare wood, scuffed and aged. The floral wallpaper was starting to peel away from the walls and dried leaves were scattered over the floor, small piles building in the corners.

The damp scent of mildew hinted from underneath the crisp burn of the autumn leaves, tucked into forgotten corners. Wind caught the few that remained in solitary confinement, gently pushing them with their fallen comrades, their dead corners scraping quietly over the hardwood.

In the middle of the room sat a grand piano that had clearly, at one time, been gorgeous. Now, a layer of dust had settled over it and with the fallboard closed, the beautiful instrument looked sadly abandoned.

 _Oh, how I can relate,_ Chat thought as he approached it.

Who kept a grand piano in a desolate turret of a house? He thought the house had been abandoned for a few months. He could now clearly see that he had been wrong, however. The house had been left alone for years. Opening the fallboard to the yellowing keys spoke almost as loudly to the houses lack of inhabitants than the failing wallpaper did.

Chat pulled the bench out with the toe of his boot. He stared at it for a moment, hesitating, then sank down and spun to position himself at the keys, his fingers finding middle c by memory alone.

He hadn't played a piano since his mother had disappeared.

Sure, his father instructed Natalie to make him practice. Natalie never stood over him to ensure that it happened, though and you could convince people of anything as long as it was done behind a locked door and the sound quality on your cell phone was good enough.

But actually playing a piano...that he refused to do.  
The piano his father bought was nothing compared to the modest upright that had belonged to his mother. The grand piano was an eyesore that took up too much space and made him extremely uncomfortable. He did everything in his power to avoid it. What he wanted to play was his mother's piano, but his father had made certain that would never happen. Not long after she disappeared, so did anything that would serve as a reminder of her. All that remained were pictures - pictures of the perfect family, of scripted shoots and instructed poses...and cold detachment from a man that Aiden could only refer to as "father."

Sometimes...sometimes he wondered if his father really cared that his mother was gone. Or if he only cared that the woman who fed his powerful image was no longer around to keep a constant flow of interest and influence flowing into the business.

His fingers ghosted over the keys, pain etching itself deeply in the recesses of his heart where his mother's spirit existed as strongly as if she were still-.

Adrien closed his eyes against the bitter sting of tears, hanging his head.

She was alive.

Somewhere she was alive.

He just didn't know where.

By memory and will alone, his fingers found the keys to a song he would never forget. He didn't need to practice it to remember, didn't need it ringing constantly through his head to know what keys followed the ones before them.

It was _her_ song.

Christophori's Dream...he started slow, not entirely sure how he felt about playing something that was so significant. It was painful, devastating and yet there was a comfort there in the in the notes as they drifted into the stillness of the night. A freedom that no one was around to take away from him or reign in.

He kept his eyes shut against the tears, trying to force them back, to lose himself in the poignant melody. The tempo steadily increased as he poured his anger, fear, desperation and frustrations into what he was doing, letting them be swept away, willing them to stay away so he could breathe. So he could stop forcing smiles, stop living through the pain and escape it just for one damn moment.

He lost himself to it all, not noticing the soft tread of footsteps behind him or the blue eyes that watched him.

His fingers flawlessly pounded over the crescendo. Tears tracked steadily over his mask, down his cheeks. He didn't care. He just wanted it out...wanted every draining emotion, every hopeless thought gone.

But as the last note drifted into the stillness of the night...it was all still there.

Like his father, he couldn't escape it. He couldn't escape _any_ of it.

And apparently, he couldn't escape _her_.

"How did you find me?" he asked, feeling her presence behind him.

"You know how," Ladybug murmured.

Of course he did. Like he was drawn to her, she too was drawn to him. It had nothing to do with emotions. Nothing to do with how much he loved her. It was their Miraculous. One couldn't be active without drawing the other out eventually.

She joined him on the piano bench, sinking down beside him and facing the opposite direction.

"Chat-."

"Do you ever wish that who we are now was who we were always?" he asked, not looking at her. He couldn't. Not if he wanted to say what was hurting him so much.

"Stay Ladybug?"

He nodded. "And Cat Noir. Some days...some days I just want to stay...like this and not go back to being who I am."

She inched closer, keeping that cautious space between them. That "just friends" space that left no room to really hope for something different. Where he had always disliked that space, today he hated it with a deep ferocity.

"What's so bad about who you are?"

He sighed and looked away from her, watching the dried leaves tucked against the wall twitch restlessly as a breeze whispered over the floor. "Everything," he snapped, standing abruptly and slamming the fallboard closed. He walked away from her, into the shadows on the opposite side of the room. To her credit, she stayed where she was, unflinching, watching him cautiously. "Who I am, who my family is, the way I'm forced to live this life without making my own decisions. There's nothing about my civilian life that I actually _want_ to return to. Ever. And honestly, every time I transform, it gets harder and harder to give a damn about returning to what a joke my real life is."

He felt her gaze slide away from him.

"I guess...I never really wanted to get away from real life that badly. Or...at all, really..."

Chat sneered a little at that. He wasn't angry with her. Funneling that emotion into anything regarding Ladybug was pointless. She had a better life than him. Most people did. "Lucky you."

"You have friends though, right?" she asked. "People who actually understand what you're going through and can help?"

"I have...friends-." He hesitated on the word, still slightly foreign to him. Yes, he had friends - Nino, Alya, Marinette...even Chloe on occasion, he could stomach when she wasn't acting entirely stuck up and looking down on the rest of the general population. "I don't really talk about what they don't see. It's not something I _want_ to talk about."

She was silent for a moment, then rose and closed the distance between them, her fingers hesitantly brushing his shoulder. "If you don't talk to anyone about it, how are they supposed to help you through any of it?" she asked, her voice so careful and cautious, plucking at a sense of guilt.

He looked at her then, searching for answers in the comfort of her gaze. "I don't want help through it. I don't _want_ it. I haven't been able to escape it for years. How is talking to anyone supposed to get me out of it?"

"I'm your friend. You could talk to me. I could-."

He shrugged her hand away, feeling the cold bite of injustice. He wanted so much more from her that friendship. Her reminder of that, though not intended to come across as hurtful, made him feel even more alone in the world. "You could what?" he bit out. "I can't tell you a damn thing without outting myself. Aren't you the one who's always pointing out how we can never know who the other really is? You can do about as much to help as anyone else can which is _nothing_. Just-," he took a step away from her, shaking his head, "Just forget I said anything."

He started to leave. Ladybug grabbed his hand. "Chat, wait-."

"I have to go-."

He pulled his hand away and felt the give of his ring, felt it slide over the fabric of his gloved hand and made no attempt to stop it. He could have clenched his hand, could have curled his fingers to ensure the safety of his identity. It would occur to him later that he hadn't really wanted to - that deep down he _needed_ her to know who he really was.

She gasped, he stumbled and in a sweep of green, he stood before her as Adrien Agreste.

Neither of them spoke. Even if he knew what to say, he wouldn't know how to say it. She stared at him wide-eyed and he stared back, his lips set in a firm line, panic riding the edges of silent defiance.

Finally, when he couldn't take it anymore and had firmly convinced himself that her silence was some form of rejection, he held out his hand. "I need that back, please."

She blinked and looked down at her hands, her brow furrowing, like she couldn't quite understand what she was looking at. Then, those wide blue eyes were back on him and she dropped the ring in his open palm.

Adrien slid it back into place, clenching his hand. "Well, I guess you get to keep your secret at least."  
"Tikki," she whispered and he went still, caught off guard. The air around them shifted, electrified with the impact of that one simple word. "Spots off."

Glittering pink and white swirled around her. Red lycra gave way to denim, a rose colored top, a purse he would have recognized anywhere because it was an original, designed by the one who wore it.

Gone was Ladybug and in her place, her cheeks a vibrant pink, was Marinette.

Ladybug _was_ Marinette.

Silly, wonderful, always so kind to him Marinette who tripped over her own feet, created beauty effortlessly, owned anyone who dare challenged her in video games, and couldn't string more than a few words together around him.

Marinette who now knew the hell he was living in.

Marinette who knew the secrets he kept.

The relief he felt brought a new wave of tears, a gratitude that went so deep that it left him feeling weak.

Of course it was her. Moments of familiarity suddenly made sense. Every friendly touch, certain looks, the conviction that ran so strongly whether she was herself or Ladybug.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered. "If I would have known...or even understood what you were going through-."

He caught her around the waist with one arm his other hand cradling the side of her face and effectively stopping the flow of words. They would have plenty later, he was sure of it. Secrets to put to rest, lives to reveal. But words could wait.

He ran his thumb over her cheekbone, traced the curve of her jaw with his fingertips. "I'm...so glad it's you."

He wouldn't allow her to question why he was glad. Instead, he caught her mouth with his, kissing her tenderly. She gasped and he curled his hand around the base of her neck, deepening the kiss. She turned fluid against him, the tension melting away as she clung to him. It was empowering to know he could do this to her, just as empowering as it was humbling.

"I love you," he murmured against her lips.  
"Love me? Or love-."

He pulled away and used his hand to stop her words, grinning and shaking his head. "You Marinette...Ladybug...you're the same person. I can't believe I didn't see it sooner." Her mouth twitched at the corner and he kissed the very tip of her nose. "But I see it now. I think that needs to count for something."

Instead of agreeing with him, her expression turned serious. "I love you too, Adrien. I'll help you through this. I promise."

He believed her.

Nothing seemed as bleak anymore. Nothing about life seemed to hard to overcome. Not with his lady by his side in every aspect of his life.

They could face any demons together, the invisible ones that haunted him included.

"I know, my lady. Thank you."

And he kissed her again...because really, those words _could_ wait.


End file.
